Work Without Hope - By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

LINES COMPOSED 2IST FEBRUARY 1827


  All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair--
  The bees are stirring--birds are on the wing--
  And Winter, slumbering in the open air,
  Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
  And I the while, the sole unbusy thing,
  Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.
  Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
  Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
  Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
  For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
  With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll:
  And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
  Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
  And Hope without an object cannot live.

1827.